A/HRC/4/17 page 7 II. GAZA 6. In August 2005, Israel withdrew its settlers and armed forces from Gaza. Statements by the Government of Israel that the withdrawal ended the occupation of Gaza are grossly inaccurate. Even before the commencement of “Operation Summer Rains”, following the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit, Gaza remained under the effective control of Israel. This control was manifested in a number of ways. Israel retained control of Gaza’s air space, sea space and external borders, and the border crossings of Rafah (for persons) and Karni (for goods) were ultimately under Israeli control and remained closed for lengthy periods. In effect, following Israel’s withdrawal, Gaza became a sealed off, imprisoned and occupied territory. 7. On 25 June 2006 a group of Palestinian militants attacked a military base near the Israeli Egyptian border. In retreating, they took Corporal Gilad Shalit with them as a captive. They demanded the release of the women and children in Israeli jails in return for his release. This act, together with the continued Qassam rocket fire into Israel, unleashed a savage response from the Government of Israel that went by the name of “Operation Summer Rains”. This was followed by another military assault in November with the name of “Operation Autumn Clouds”. These operations, which took the form of repeated military incursions into Gaza, accompanied by heavy shelling, rendered the question whether Gaza remains an occupied territory of academic interest only. Israel’s assault on, and siege of Gaza, in the course of Operations “Summer Rains” and “Autumn Clouds” is described in the following paragraphs. A. Military action 8. Between 25 June 2006 and the truce that came into force at the end of November 2006, over 400 Palestinians were killed and some 1,500 injured. More than half of those killed and wounded were civilians. Of those killed some 90 were children; and over 300 children were injured. During the same period 3 Israeli soldiers were killed and 18 wounded, and 2 Israeli civilians were killed and some 30 injured in Sderot and its precincts by Qassam rockets fired by Palestinians from Gaza. 9. In the course of Operations “Summer Rains” and “Autumn Clouds” the IDF carried out 364 military incursions into different parts of Gaza, accompanied by persistent artillery shelling and air-to-surface missile attacks. Missiles, shells and bulldozers destroyed, or caused serious damage to, homes, schools, hospitals, mosques, public buildings, bridges, water pipelines and sewage networks. On 27 June 2006, the Israeli Air Force destroyed all six transformers of the only domestic power plant in the Gaza Strip, which supplied 43 per cent of Gaza’s daily electricity. This resulted in depriving half of the population of Gaza of electricity for several months. (At the time of writing, this power plant had been largely repaired, thanks to generous funding from the Governments of Egypt and Sweden, and is now able to provide 85 per cent of the electricity previously supplied.) Citrus groves and agricultural lands were levelled by bulldozers, and in the first phase of “Operation Summer Rains” F-16s flew low over Gaza, breaking the sound barrier and causing widespread terror among the population. Thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes as a result of Israel’s military action. Israel justified its assault on Gaza on three grounds: the search for Corporal Shalit, the eradication of militant groups and their arms, and, above all, the stopping of Qassam rockets that have been regularly and repeatedly fired from Northern Gaza into civilian areas in Southern Israel.